WoW – More fun together!

Main Tankadin? Me? Seriously?

This weekend I set out to do something new: heal as a paladin. I ended up doing two new things, one of which was my intended goal and the other…

Well, so there I was, logged in on Divergent the paladin. I changed her off spec to Holy a week or so back and I’d been collecting random drops for that set for a while now, so I went to the auction house and started looking to fill in holes. Found a bunch of random blues that would be “good enough” for me to get my feet wet. Couldn’t find a weapon or trinkets, so I started researching easily attained versions of both.

At the same time I’m keeping my eye on trade with the vague idea of tanking a weekly raid group – it was Obsidian Sanctum on our server this week, Analogue had single healed it with Reversion as the sole tank earlier in the week and it had stuck in my mind as a set of fights I knew well enough to feel comfortable tanking. Then I saw in chat a name I recognized as someone who had pugged ICC with Analogue a couple weeks back, an Australian shaman with an awesome accent and great skills. Looking for more for ICC10. Well Ana and Reversion had gone the night before, gotten past Saurfang and had people drop out for RL issues, so she couldn’t go. My mage wasn’t saved, and I’d been thinking of getting her into one, but he was saying that the dps so far all had 5.5k GS and Invariant’s is lower than that. I might convince him that was fine but…

So I whispered him and said “4.8k GS prot pally here. Interested?”

A few seconds later I get the invite. I mention to him that my main had pugged with him a few weeks back (after I got in vent he remembered me) and as the raid was forming, I got Reversion’s secondary druid Consolidate in as healer. Con’s GS is about the same as Divergent’s, and the other (also pally) tank was the same; the shaman agreed to go heals, we had a priest to heal the tanks, and all the dps were higher.

So we set off. The other tank hadn’t tank any of the fights either. Both healers were a bit less accustomed to their role (the shaman usually dpsed and Rev, of course, tanks)

We get the trash down fairly easily. The usual random people die, get rezzed, spring traps… but the other paladin and I knew to stack on each other for the giants, kept the casters turned away from the raid mostly, and it went well. This was Divergent’s first time in ICC and I was keeping a keen eye on her rep, just waiting to get friendly so I could get the ring.

We came up to Marrowgar, discussed strategy, and started. It went pretty well. The other tank and I had a little trouble moving together out of the flames, but the first two bonestorms came and went without a hitch. And then, over vent – “Guys, I dc’d!”

That was the other tank.

Bonestorm started again as he worked to log in. I followed the boss around, picked him up when he came out of bonestorm and dragged him over to where the other tank stood motionless. He had dc’d, but not disappeared from the instance and worked just fine to soak up the cleaves! We had to stay and get hit by flames, but the healers worked overtime and kept us up until he logged back in.

Marrowgar dropped and the whole raid congratulated each other.

Deathwhisper was really fun to tank. We each would grab one of the adds that appeared at the side and drag him to the middle add, then kill them all. The raid pounded away on the boss. I was impressed how fast they got her shield down, or was it just the change in perspective? Healing raid fights leaves me breathless, spamming keys, desperately fighting to stay alive. Tanking was… suprisingly easier. The boss’s shield came down, and we had to watch each other; my taunts didn’t always seem to hit and I had to be told to move her back up out of the raid. But we got the hang of it, swapped taunts, stayed alive – and another boss went down. Whew.

Upstairs, charge in and kill trash. As the first group dies, someone lets out a whop – “Quest!” The raid quest to kill the rotting giant appeared. Divergent needs all the frosts she can get!

We cleared toward the giant and then another whoop – a trash mob had dropped a BOE necklace. I hadn’t realized 10 man ICC trash would drop the BoEs, I had thought they only appeared in 25, but there they were. The hunter begged, and we agreed to give it to him; it was a serious upgrade and he equipped it right away. Then it was frost giant time. The other tank and I started tanking in the middle of the hallway, but after the healers complained about us getting knocked back out of range (I thought it was fun!) we stood with our backs to the wall. Not as fun, but effective; the giant died and we got badges. Wheee.

I got the easy job on gunship, just stood in the middle and picked up adds. One of these days I’ll actually jump over to the other ship. I’ll probably fall off. Or get stuck over there at the end. I’ve been to ICC dozens of times now and never once jumped.

Saurfang, the fight I’d been dreading. I pulled all my AOE abilities off my bar, triple-checked that I was using Seal of Vengeance and not Seal of Command, and got ready. I tanked first, then the other tank taunted; I stopped my dps for a minute and breathed a sigh of relief as Saurfang changed his attention. Blood beasts appeared, and went away, and died; I didn’t have to worry about it. My turn to tank again; I taunted, the other tank let me have aggro, and we were in the swing of things. I didn’t have to care about blood power or healing Marked victims or kiting blood beasts.

Why hadn’t anyone ever mentioned how, well, easy raid tanking is?

Saurfang died. He died. Destroyer of pugs, we one shotted him. Bane of newbie tanks, I took him on with a gear score most pug builders would laugh at. It felt incredible. And – just a little boring. Don’t tell anyone I said that.

Halfway through the trash to Festergut I got Friendly with the Ashen Verdict. I went downstairs for my ring and while I was gone, someone got too close to a dog and they wiped. I laughed, we went upstairs, rebuffed, and tried again. And another wipe. Ooops.

More carefully this time, we killed both dogs. Then went to Festergut, planned our strategy, agreed I would tank first. We ready checked, I pulled – and instantly lost aggro to a hunter, who died. We fought him down to 30% before Reversion’s tree got Vile Gas and puked in the melee, wiping us.

Second try. Exact same thing happened. But a lot of people were new to the fight, or to their role, so we went back, tried again – and I held aggro. Swapped with the other tank at the right times, dps burned him down and we made it with over 30 seconds to go on the enrage timer.

Wish I could say we steamrolled the rest of the place that easily, but we didn’t. We made two attempts on Rotface, but then people had to go just as I was getting the hang of slime tanking (hard!)

Later that afternoon I played (utterly useless) third tank in a TOC 25 man raid. And Sunday afternoon, tanked Obsidian Sanctum. In between I set up my healing set and did my first few dungeons as a holy pally! Which I intend to talk about in a seperate post, but I see this one is already too long.

But for all that, I like resto druid healing ICC a lot more than tanking it. It’s just more fun for me. But I’d tank it on my paladin anytime!

Like this:

Related

8 Responses

I’ve got a blog post half-written, about raid tanking vs 5-man tanking, and this post touches on one of the points I’m gonna make: raid tanking is kinda boring, especially if you’re MT. Often, the OT’s job is more interesting – running about picking up adds, for example. And like you say, in situations where 2 tanks are needed on the boss, you basically just stand there and hit the boss and press Taunt occasionally.

It does kinda make me wonder why I’m gearing my DK up in ICC stuff if I feel this way…

It is interesting what you do and don’t see as a tank versus other classes. For example one of the festergut wipes was due to a mage that was too far from the melee and missed some spores. He died early and we failed to beat the enrage. As a healer I see who dies and when and sometimes know why. As a tank when we wipe I usually look up after blowing some cool downs and wonder why half my vudo bars are black. Where did everyon-*urk* *thud*.

Counterpoint
So now I have two ICC capable healers.
On Saturday morning consolidate had a 4.8ish tank set and a and a 4.7something GS healing set. Divergent got that ICC invite and I asked if they wanted a 47hundred tree. No response.. hmmm maybe I can… Oh look there was a piece I did not have equipped. I had better check the AH.. Ah! The 245 crafted chest and wrists! Oops need money. Change to other character, mail money, go to other one, mail more, beg wife for funds, get funds. Buy. Where can I get some Of course that staff is more of a boomkin one. My healing one is 20points lower… But oh well, equip. Hmmm lots of Triumph badges… and one of my trinkets is garbage. That triumph badge one is pretty bad too for a tree… but it is a huge GS boost. Grab that too.
Hey! Now I have 5k GS! Sweet! Do they need a 5k geared tree? HAH! I am in!
Over the course of the run I edge out the other healers for the #1 heals spot I also got a steady flow of drops and hit friendly with the Verdict for a new ring. When the dust settled I was over 5.3 GS.
Wow. I went up 600 points, blew past reversion’s healing set, got ICC viable for heals and did a pretty decent job healing it. /treedance

I definitely prefer raid tanking over 5 man tanking.
Everyone in 5 mans wants to hurry through everything at a pace greater than I care to go. I don’t mind this so much when I’m dpsing (unless I’m on my mage and wheezing for mana the whole run) … my warrior friend chain pulled UK the other night and I was truly impressed. I just can’t do it myself.

Besides Avengers Shield Throw thingy and judgements, sometimes I cast exorcism if I’ve got enough time. I do drop a consecrate sometimes too, but I have to watch my mana, since I’m not getting hit, I’m not getting much mana back. Sometimes I’ll just stand in a puddle to take some damage, so I can get some heals.

BTW

Just a tip. I always run into the slime puddles on the floor. I just hit Hand of Freedom and pop Bubble Wall and plow through it. Even if Divine Intervention is on CD the damage is pretty light.

***

I’m slated to heal Dreamwalker on my pally this friday. I’ve never healed it. I’ll either do 100% awesome at it or suck balls. There will be no middle ground I have a feeling.